When I was a little girl my mother worked most of the time. What I remember was her crazy hours. Because my mother had to work and she was a single parent, I had a babysitter. My grandmother was my babysitter. I spent so much time with her I even called her Big Ma and I called my own mother Ma. The truth of the matter is she was like a mother to me. When you spend time with anyone, you get to know that person well. My Big Ma was very old fashioned. She had Southern ways. You would think you were in the South when you went to her house. Even though she was living in New York, you would have thought she was still living on a farm growing her own food. She even made soap!

When I would have to stay with her, I really did not want to go. All you could do was watch T.V. and read. How much fun was that for someone like me? Not much. My grandmother loved to talk and tell me about the "Old Days." Hearing my grandmother's old stories was the best part of going to her house. Big Ma never ran out of stories. I missed her very much when she died a few years ago. She told stories until her dying day.

When I became a woman, married with my own children and I did not need her watch me, I still enjoyed visiting her and hearing her stories. One day when I was visiting her she gave me a metal box. I asked her, “Why do I need this?” She told me, “To keep all your important documents in it.” She recalled the time when she lost everything she owned and recanted the story.

Late one night her building caught fire. Never had she been in a situation like that before. People were yelling and crying, trying to get out of the building. My grandmother was unable to get out of the front door. Fire was everywhere. My two brothers were sleeping over at her house that night. Big Ma had to hand both of them to someone in the next building. The building was very close but it still took nerves of steel to be able to do that, as her apartment was on the third floor. Everyone in the apartment got out unharmed. Unable to take more than two handfuls of her belongings, she was forced to leave things that she could never replace.

Whatever the fire did not destroy, the Fire Department did. The Fire Department wet everything in sight. My grandmother told me that was the first time she even spoke to some people who lived in her building. Most of her neighbors were not known by their names. They were known as “the lady in 4D,” or “the man down the hall with the sick wife.” Names were not needed.

A friend gave her a room in her apartment to stay in until she got on her feet. Food and clothes came from people she did not even know. The church was a big help she told me. At one point, she was turning things down, as she had gotten more then she needed. She never had forgotten that time in her life, and I, too have not forgotten it. It was a sad time, but it made her feel good to know people could be so giving in time of need. One day you have and the next day you don't. That was one of Big Ma's sayings. I still have that metal box she gave me, and I keep my important papers in it, too. I remember her stories well.

Do you know someone who is having a hard time now because of some tragedy in their life? Why not give them a little support. As my grandmother would say, one day you have and the next you don't.

Do you want Carol to speak on a particular topic? Would you like her insight on a situation you're dealing with? E-mail Carol!--> Carol M.

Carol M. is a freelance advice columnist and working mother. She has three boys two of which she has raised to adulthood. She is now a grandma of two and currently works for the Human Resources Administration. She has known numerology since her second child who is now twenty-one years old. She says she uses numerology in her everyday life and finds it to be very helpful.
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